The earldom was inherited by Waltheof's daughter Maud, countess of Huntingdon, and passed to her husbands in turn, first Simon de Senlis and then David King of Scotland.

Following her death, and during the reigns of Matilda and Stephen and the anarchy that ensued, the earldom was the subject of dispute between Maud's sons Simon II and Henry the prince, and was held by both at various times. In the reign of Henry II it was settled on the Scottish house, and the sons of prince Henry: first Malcolm, then William, then David. With the death of David's childless son John in 1237, the title was not passed on and became extinct.

The earldom was assumed by the late Earl's distant relative (his fifth cousin once removed) Reverend Theophilus Henry Hastings. He was the great-great-great-grandson of Sir Edward Hastings (d. 1603), younger son of the second Earl. He is by some sources considered as the de jure eleventh Earl while some sources do not include him in the numbering of the Earls. On his death the claim passed to his nephew Hans Francis Hastings, son of George Hastings. He was allowed to take his seat in the House of Lords as the Earl of Huntingdon in 1819. Depending on the sources he is numbered as the eleventh or twelfth Earl. Lord Huntingdon served as Governor of Jamaica from 1822 to 1824. His great-great-grandson (the titles having descended from father to son), the sixteenth (or fifteenth Earl), was an artist, academic and Labour politician. He died without male issue in 1990 and was succeeded by his first cousin once removed, the seventeenth (or sixteenth) and (As of 2010[update]) present holder of the title. He is the eldest son of Captain Peter Robin Hood Hastings Bass (1920–1964) (who assumed the additional surname of Bass, which was that of his uncle by marriage, Sir William Bass, 2nd Baronet, by deed poll in 1954), son of Aubrey Craven Theophilus Robin Hood Hastings (1878–1929), younger son of the fourteenth Earl.